my new ipod is sentient. it’s set to shuffle. there are 4,520 songs in there. every time a cocteau twins song comes on i skip it, cos i’m not in a twins mood, so it keeps offering me another one. there are only forty or so twins songs on the pod, but it knows, somehow, and it will not tolerate weakness. where’s that damn rabbit’s foot? i left it here somewhere….

Neil must almost be used to being quoted by the forces of evil, but how often has he been quoted by a superhero with a rabbit’s foot AND a pogo stick, huh? Huh? Well, this morning I see he wrote this:

Gene Wolfe’s short story collection Starwater Strains, and Margo Lanagan’s collection Black Juice are both marvellous, and if you like short stories you should buy them and read them. And if you don’t think you like short stories you should buy them and read them and find out how wrong you’ve been.

Who could argue with that. I should point out that you need only buy the Wolfe collection once, which is a bargain, while careful readers will need to buy their own homegrown edition of the Lanagan book, as well as the UK edition with the cool extra story (unless, of course, you are from the UK, in which case you are a lucky b*stard).

Many thanks to Sean for pointing out the supremely useless, but really rather amusing superhero name generator. For reasons I can’t quite explain, I am:

The spectacular Lieutenant Ebytwvfryv
Power: Direct computer interface
Source of powers: Extra-terrestrial spiritual mutant
Weapon: Plasma Lucky Rabbit’s Foot
Transportation: Golden Pogo Stick

As I travel around on my Golden Pogo Stick, and occasionally defeat evildoers with my plasma lucky rabbit’s foot, I can but envy Deb her superpower, “power mimicry”. How did they know?

Channel 9 declined to televise the Ashes for a live audience. So too did Channels 7 and 10, and even the ABC couldn’t muster the interest or funds, so it fell to SBS. How they must be laughing. One of the most exciting test tours in the history of the game, all on SBS.

Hmm. Charlie is heading off to Austin for Armadillocon which, no doubt, will be a terrific event. Posting about it, he addresses his concerns about visiting the USofA at all. What an intimidating place it has become to visit, or travel through, and how threatening it’s legal environment now seems to foreign travelers.

This is something I’ve been feeling for some time now. I’m guessing since 2003 I’ve felt the US is a more threatening destination, somewhere to feel mildly anxious about visiting. I’ve been going there to attend conventions and to see Charles and the gang in Oakland, and I have family by marriage that I need to see in New York, so I want to go. Can I see a time when, possibly, I’ll refuse to travel there? Yes. Can I see a time when I’ll choose to only attend non-US World Conventions and World Fantasy Conventions? Yes. And it makes me profoundly sad. I’ve spent more than two years traveling in, visiting, living in or whatever the US. I want to go there, but I want to feel safe and to keep my family safe far more.